Organizational scholar Karl Weick notes that large scale disasters do not begin that way. His phenomenological insight into sensemaking, or how organizational members work to piece together past, present, and an as yet unrealized future in times of gathering uncertainty, allows us to reconstruct catastrophic outcomes as micro-level regularities. As he puts it, they are no more than the chaining of actions and reactions to “small events [that] combine to have disproportionately large effects” (2010, p. 125). Similarly, in their chilling account of a 911 phone call that fails to materialize in the dispatch of an ambulance, Whalen, Zimmerman and Whalen (1988) show how an emergency which culminates in an unnecessary death is a joint production between the caller and the 911 operator. In the orderly, turn-by-turn interplay of utterances, we see how each speaker operates within different territories of knowledge (Heritage, 2012) and therefore different epistemic rights, obligations and authority with respect to defining the ontology of emergency, even as they take the conversation to its “fateful dénouement” (p. 240). Because the meanings of events as they occur are as yet mostly undetermined, we use retrospection to make sense of what has happened. We use measures, accounts, justifications, and a social vocabulary of redress. We speak of and study “risk,” “crisis,” and “disaster” as discrete phenomena that are affected by and captured in communication rather than constructed through communication in and of itself (Bartesaghi & Castor, 2010). And yet it is communication that grants salience to some possibilities and excludes others, even as events themselves unfold (Castor & Bartesaghi, 2016; Chia, 2000).

The need to study crisis as in-the-moment sensemaking, and, indeed, the seeds for this special issue were planted in me in September of 2005, when I received a small package in the mail from the still flooded Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. In it were ten CDs of recorded teleconferences held by local, state, and federal officials in the days immediately preceding and in the course of Hurricane Katrina, until loss of communication. These conversations, moderated by Colonel Jeff Smith and featuring Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Blanco, FEMA, the National Weather Service, the Red Cross and Parish representatives, among other speakers, were later part of what was deemed as a failure of “coordination.” And yet speakers were very well coordinated, in the sense that they followed a pre-existing plan quite precisely, and in that Smith did not allow for deviations to the plan. In fact, I found that though the term “coordination” becomes part of the social discourse of blame and redress after the fact, and that it appears as a recommendation in scholarly and public discourse alike, speakers in the calls used it in a very different way. To them, being coordinated meant the ability to invoke “coordination” to align with certain actions and disaffiliate with speakers who would not act accordingly, and to authorize certain decisions as part of a common goal, as opposed to acting alone. One such course of action was the request by the leaders of some low-lying parishes to evacuate earlier than others, which Jeff Smith denied by speaking for the plan. For the sake of coordination, the Superdome ended up as a shelter of last resort (see Bartesaghi, 2014).

The articles in this special issue take an important step toward a reconceptualization of sensemaking as a practical epistemic endeavor, that is, as members’ knowledge as they authorize accountable versions of what is happening in terms of the social vocabulary of risk, crisis, emergency, and disaster, and acting in consequence according to those terms. By examining the ways in which risk, crisis and disaster emerge in communicative dynamics designed to understand, address, and in fact, communicate about these very constructs, each article in this issue adds to our understanding of how crisis is “risk that is manifested” (Heath & O’Hair, 2009, p. 6) in the interplay of inter-action, be it in social media, conversation, texts, and the intertextual and multimodal connections between them.

What I especially appreciate about the pieces is the range of situations that they examine, demonstrating that it is not the magnitude of events that matters, but what they teach us about the dynamics of communication at the heart of crisis, emergency, risk, and disaster. In Milburn’s discourse analysis of a same-sex couple’s confrontation with a Kentucky County Clerk over her denial to issue a marriage license, we see how an interpersonal conflict indexes the morally laden values of socially ordered and multiple identities. In other words, Milburn shows how speakers in crisis situations address listeners beyond those that are immediately present, speaking to and for what they consider a greater authority.

The study by Grey and Broussard and the collaborative article between communication scholars Koschmann and Kopczynski and civil and architectural engineering researchers Opdyke and Javernick-Will also underscore how authority materializes crisis, in the very real sense that it makes it matter (Cooren, 2015). By problematizing the very notion of risk, Grey and Broussard’s rhetorical analysis of the case of fracking in Lousiana examines how risk is inherently political and polycentric discourse; what Mehan (1996) would call “a case in the politics of representation” between experts and counter publics and each party’s ability to mobilize media to speak on their behalf. Koschmann et al.’s brilliant analysis of the accomplishment of a coordinated multiparty disaster relief effort in the wake of the Philippine’s Typhoon Yolanda helps us appreciate how authority is itself shifting and emergent in processes of sensemaking, and, reflexively, a resource for sensemaking. Novak and Vilceneau’s study of the public discourse surrounding credit card security is equally compelling in demonstrating how a discursive approach to sensemaking can aid policymakers in a reflexive understanding of their own role in the unfolding of crisis. The authors’ analysis of C-SPAN debates reveals the importance of temporality in crisis discourse, and how retrospective and reactive arguments prevailed over potentially more useful statements about the ability to address future incidents.

It is no accident that this special issue has two articles that examine the role of Twitter, for analyses of social media are no doubt a privileged site for capturing in-the-moment processes of everyday knowledge making among diverse publics, and the intertextual and multimodal interplay of authors and authority. Gesualdi’s accomplished case analysis of the Twitter exchanges in the course of the Icelandic volcano ash cloud focuses on the crucial role of hashtags in framing the conversation, by means of a discursive network of users that imposed order from chaos. Getchell, Sellnow and Herovic’s study of the 2014 West Virginia water contamination crisis tracks over six thousand Twitter messages as real time sensemaking to encourage organizations to use Twitter to its full potential, not only to understand public sentiment about what is happening, but to move beyond one-way transmission into conversational exchanges allowed by the medium.

I thank each of the authors in this issue for their hard work in making critical and timely inroads in situating risk, crisis, emergency, and disaster firmly in the study of communication.

Crisis at the Courthouse: Examining Challenges to Normativity

Trudy Milburn
Purchase College
Purchase, NY, USA

Abstract: In June of 2015, a County Clerk of a Kentucky courthouse refused to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, despite being legally required to do so by a Supreme Court edict. The incident made headline news and sparked a national debate. A close analysis of the interactions during the incident reveals participants proffering several member categories and related actions in an attempt to persuade one another of the morality of a given position. Within these conversational moves, participants attempt to make sense of the unfolding events. As communication researchers we can use participants’ own strategies and orientations to learn more about how an interpersonal conflict can form part of a larger social crisis. When a challenger attempts to entice a target with leading questions, we find targets resisting through means of silence as well as appeals to alternate categories. When these attempts are examined closely through membership categorization analysis, we find that categories and their related actions may be used to reinforce outdated norms.

An Examination of the Use of Twitter during the West Virginia Water Crisis

Morgan C. Getchell
Morehead State University
Morehead, KY, USA

Timothy L. Sellnow
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL, USA

Emina Herovic
University of Maryland
College Park, MD, USA

Abstract: Social media is playing an increasing role in how people acquire information, express themselves, and socially construct the crisis events they experience first-hand and observe indirectly. Twitter, in particular, is useful to crisis communicators because it allows for engaging broad networks in one way and two way communication. This analysis is based on a case study of how Twitter was used during the 2014 West Virginia water contamination crisis. A total of 60,774 Tweets posted between January 9, 2014 (the day the spill began) and January 31, 2014, were analyzed using an inductive content analysis. Organizations responding to the crisis via Twitter focused on one way messages, making little use of the two-way communication opportunities provided by Twitter. The content of the Tweets included a surprisingly limited amount of information providing recommendations for self-protection. Messages establishing meaning for the crisis focused on outrage, religious references, and expressions of sympathy.

Dominance and Danger in South Louisiana:
Social Media and the Construction of Risk and Authority
in the Fight over Fracking

Stephanie Houston Grey
Johanna M. Broussard

Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA, USA

Abstract: This paper explores the controversial and contested proposal to begin hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) near Lakeshore High School in St. Tammany Parish in Louisiana. St. Tammany, an area normally supportive of the oil and gas industry, has become a hot bed for grass roots activism that crosses generational and political divides as citizens have mobilized in an ongoing attempt to keep their home and environment frack-free. This essay positions risk communication as a site of rhetorical struggle where competing definitions and rhetorics of danger and dominance clash. Throughout this conflict, the use of social media by local environmental activists created a virtual forum to meet, strategize, and disseminate information to the citizenry, creating an elevated consciousness that emboldened the populace with a sense of agency to stand and defend their physical, economic, and environmental health from this dangerous and controversial method of natural gas extraction.

Constructing Authority in Disaster Relief Coordination

Matthew A. Koschmann
Jared Kopczynski
Aaron Opdyke
Amy Javernick-Will

University of Colorado Boulder
Boulder, CO, USA

Abstract: The purpose of our study is to explore the social construction of authority in disaster relief coordination. We emphasize the ways in which stakeholders draw upon various discursive resources in order to establish or preserve their authority to act within a certain problem domain. We review literature on authority, coordination, communication, and collaborative work to provide a theoretical framework that informs our empirical examples. Next we present a case study of disaster relief coordination in the Philippines following Typhoon Yolanda (known internationally as Haiyan). Our case focuses on home reconstruction in the Cebu province of the Central Visayas region of the Philippines, one of the areas hardest hit by the storm where most of the homes were destroyed or severely damaged. This case demonstrates organizations do not have authority within this problem domain, but instead construct authority through practice and sensemaking in order to accomplish a variety of individual and collective goals; authority is in a constant state of negotiation as various organizations coordinate with each other (or not) to provide effective disaster relief. We conclude with a discussion about the contributions and implications of our research.

Twitter and the Iceland Ash Cloud:
Discourse in an International Crisis

Maxine Gesualdi
West Chester University
West Chester, PA, USA

Abstract: In April 2010, the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull erupted and caused a cloud of airborne ash that moved across Europe. This created a crisis for many stakeholders including airlines, NGOs, nation-state governments, consumer groups, the travel and hospitality industry, and individual consumers. This crisis was unique because unlike other scrutinized cases (such as Hurricane Katrina in the U.S.) this was a non-deadly natural disaster that had no human cause, no one to blame, and no real recourse or recovery effort. Using discourse analysis, this case study explores discursive practices of Twitter users who applied the hashtag #ashtag to frame their discussions of the crisis. The results provide an understanding of how people in disparate parts of the globe form a discursive network to comprehend a crisis as it unfolds, which balances the need for levity with the need for utility and creates order from chaos.

Abstract: With the proliferation of credit card security crises in the 21st century, Congressional actions and debates are likely to increasingly focus on cyber-safety and -security. This study applied the three-phase crisis model (pre-crisis preparedness, during-crisis management, and post-crisis response) to policy debates and emerging legislation relative to major credit card crises. Qualitative analysis methods explored Congressional debates over credit card security, in the context of real-time connections between crisis and public policy development from C-SPAN digital archives. There were 97 bill proposals and afferent Congressional debates between 1992-2015 that included references to “credit card” and “security.” Policymakers predominantly formulated their arguments around (1) past crises foreshadowing future ones, (2) hackers posing a major threat to national security, and (3) assigning responsibility for preventing and fixing credit card security problems. Public policy was most often proposed in reactive terms and discussed in the aftermath of a crisis, as opposed to a sustained focus on crisis prevention and preparedness.

Organizations in Hiding:
Appropriateness, Effectiveness, and Motivations for Concealment

Surabhi Sahay
Maria Dwyer
Craig R. Scott
Punit Dadlani
Erin McKinley

Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Abstract: Organizational scholarship has rarely considered various hidden organizations in our society. Thus, little is known about how organizations and their members conceal their identity from others and how outsiders might evaluate the appropriateness of, effectiveness of, and motivations for organizational concealment. Our study reports survey data assessing 14 different hidden organizations and their perceived concealment efforts. Additionally, we examine the appropriateness of three motivations for concealment and three attitudes related to concealment. Results suggest similarities and differences in the effectiveness and appropriateness of concealment efforts by various organizations. Additionally, perceived motivations for concealment explain concealment efforts for some types of organizations, but not others. We draw several conclusions from our findings, discuss scholarly and practical implications of this research, and suggest directions for future scholarship related to organizational concealment.

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